Queen Elizabeth II Becomes Britain’s Longest-Reigning Monarch

Video

Queen Elizabeth II spoke in Tweedbank, Scotland, on Wednesday, the day she became the longest-reigning monarch in Britain’s history.Published OnSept. 9, 2015CreditImage by Scott Heppell/Associated Press

LONDON — “Her Majesty’s a pretty nice girl, but she doesn’t have a lot to say,” Paul McCartney wrote in 1969, as a coda to “Abbey Road.” Of course, Queen Elizabeth II met the Beatles, too, in what has now become, by reason of fate and genes, Britain’s longest reign.

She became queen at 25, and as of 5:30 p.m. British time on Wednesday, at 89, she had ruled for 23,226 days, 16 hours and about 30 minutes, according to the BBC, surpassing Queen Victoria, her great-great-grandmother.

The first Queen Elizabeth gave her name to an age, as did Victoria, in an ever more powerful kingdom. But that is not going to be the legacy of this Elizabeth, who has reigned over Britain’s long transition from empire to Commonwealth, from world power to relative international insignificance.

The historian David Cannadine said Queen Elizabeth’s legacy would feature both transition and decline — the change of British society into “a much more fluid, multicultural, more secular society,” and “the downsizing of the British Empire into the British Commonwealth, the downsizing of Britain as a great power.”

For Mr. Cannadine, the queen has been “the perfect symbol for the orderly management, to the extent it’s been orderly, of domestic transformation and international decline.”

Through it all, she has managed to maintain public respect and belief in the monarchy — despite the sometimes scandalous behavior of her children and the spectacular death of Diana, the Princess of Wales — by her regal quiet.

Another historian, David Starkey, echoed Mr. McCartney’s insight into the queen. “She has made it an absolute rule to say nothing about anything,” he told the BBC.

“The other name, alongside Elizabeth the Changeless, could be Elizabeth the Silent,” he said. “And clearly, it is deliberate.”

In private, many attest, the queen can sometimes be sharp and even malicious, and a good mimic, Mr. Starkey said. But “in public utterance,” he said, “a very firm and large padlock is placed upon the royal lips.”

In this, the queen has embraced the wisdom of Walter Bagehot in “The English Constitution,” published as a book in 1867, when he said that to preserve a constitutional monarchy, “we must not let in daylight upon magic.”

And when the bright lights of the tabloids displayed the sometimes shocking, sometimes bizarre marital troubles of the first in line for the throne, Prince Charles, and those of Prince Andrew and Princess Anne, the queen kept her head down and did her sometimes tedious duty, keeping her own marriage together and deflecting criticism from the institution.

She has also been rigorous about her responsibilities, again heeding Bagehot when he wrote that a sovereign has “three rights — the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn.” He added, “And a king of great sense and sagacity would want no others.”

Her reign has included 12 British prime ministers, seven archbishops of Canterbury and seven popes. One of the prime ministers, John Major, called her “an absolute constant that is very reassuring.”

In his memoir, Tony Blair recounted his first meeting with her as prime minister: “You are my 10th prime minister,” the queen told him. “The first was Winston. That was before you were born.”

The current prime minister, David Cameron, on Wednesday called the queen “a rock of stability in a world of constant change,” adding, “It is only right that we should celebrate her extraordinary record, as well as the grace and dignity with which she serves our country.”

Prime ministers are supposed to keep their conversations with the monarch private. But an embarrassed Mr. Cameron had to apologize to her last year after he was overheard telling the former mayor of New York, Michael R. Bloomberg, of the queen’s happiness that Scotland had voted to remain a part of the United Kingdom.

“The definition of relief is being the prime minister of the United Kingdom and ringing the queen and saying, ‘It’s all right, it’s O.K.,’ ” Mr. Cameron told Mr. Bloomberg. “That was something. She purred down the line.”

He then added, according to the BBC: “I’ve never heard someone tear up like that. It was great” — although Channel 4 decided the words were “cheer up.”

The queen spent Wednesday in Scotland, doing her queenly duty. The Duke of Edinburgh, her husband, joined her to open the Scottish Borders Railway, and they rode on a steam train with Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon.

There was more fuss in London, where regular business in the House of Commons was postponed for 30 minutes so that legislators could pay tribute.

A flotilla of historical vessels, leisure cruisers and passenger boats took part in a procession between Tower Bridge and the Houses of Parliament. The flotilla did not, however, include the Royal Yacht Britannia, which the queen loved but decommissioned in 1997 in response to public agitation for savings. It is now a tourist attraction in Edinburgh.

Image

The coronation of Queen Elizabeth in Westminster Abbey on June 2, 1953.CreditAssociated Press

The official photograph of the queen released on Wednesday, with her “red box” full of government papers to read, was taken by Mr. McCartney’s daughter Mary, a professional photographer. The message of the photograph, of course, is that this queen is continuing to do her duty and exercise her functions, and that she has no interest in stepping down.

The monarchy and the queen are hardly without critics, and the republican movement, which regards the monarchy and its many branches as a waste of space and money, remains vocal.

Graham Smith, head of the anti-monarchist group Republic, said in a statement: “The queen has said nothing and done little that anyone can remember over 63 years in office. So instead, we see commentators and cheerleaders projecting the nation’s history, changes and achievements onto the monarch.”

In reality, Mr. Smith said, “the queen has succeeded only in serving the monarchy and the status quo.”

“It is now time for the country to look to the future and to choose a successor through free and fair elections, someone who can genuinely represent the nation,” he said.

Polly Toynbee, a columnist for the newspaper The Guardian, called the queen “the past-mistress of nothingness,” who only had to “stay alive, procreate and do nothing to upset the multitudes” to reach Wednesday’s milestone. “Charles is now the oldest ever Prince of Wales,” she wrote. “If the queen lives as long as her mother, he’ll be 79 when/if he accedes.”

She fumed, as many have done before, “If centuries of privileged breeding and education produce dunderheads and philistines, that proves talent is genetically random, not inherited.”

“Put an end to this royal infantilizing of a nation,” she added. “Imagine how abolishing the monarchy would open all the dusty constitutional cupboards to the sunlight of reform. Let her reign as long as she lives — but let her be Elizabeth the Last.”

In his diaries, Alan Clark, one of the more indiscreet ministers to serve in her governments, described a 1991 ceremony in which he had been inducted into the Privy Council.

Queen Elizabeth was seated in a room with “indifferent pictures,” before rising from her chair and moving “regally to initiate a painfully, grotesquely banal conversation,” Mr. Clark wrote.

“Not for the first time, I wondered about the queen,” he wrote. “Is she really rather dull and stupid? Or is she thinking, ‘How do people as dull and stupid as this ever get to be ministers?’ Or is, for her, the whole thing so stale and déjà vu after 40 years that she’d really rather be going round the stables at Highclere, patting racehorses on the nose?”

And that was 24 years ago.

Get news and analysis from Europe and around the world delivered to your inbox every day with the Today’s Headlines: European Morning newsletter. Sign up here.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A10 of the New York edition with the headline: Elizabeth Becomes Britain’s Longest-Serving Monarch. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe